Case Study: How Lack of Online Accounting Grew a New Firm

After scrutinizing their industry a few years ago, Chad Davis and Josh Zweig uncovered an eye-opening trend: Some accountants were offering services that were more important to them than what customers really needed.

The dilemma caused distance between clients and their accountants, and that misalignment spurred Davis and Zweig to start LiveCA LLP in 2013, a Toronto-based public CPA firm and provider of online outsourced accounting services.

Background

Davis and Zweig were focused on providing an accounting firm that centered on operations and back-office technology processes as much as taxes. They found a niche after not seeing other accounting firms offer services that covered all levels of financial management from a tax and technology viewpoint, laying the groundwork for their hybrid CPA firm.

“Our virtual model would allow for conversations to take place with specific tech and tax experts in a team environment delivered over video chat,” Davis says. “It wouldn’t matter if the issue was related to accounting, bookkeeping, project management or e-commerce, we had someone that could help.”

Davis adds that what LiveCA really sells are good feelings. “Customers don’t tend to buy a tax return because you sell tax returns,” he says. “They’re buying the feeling a completed tax return makes. We take customers from a state of chaos and bring them to place of clarity.”